Is she by chance PTing at night or newly night trained? I ask because when my DD was about that age and had night terrors my DH found an article online about a dr. that discovered a link between the two. Something to do with the immature brain not waking them up fully when they had to go.

When DD woke up inconsolable as she was doing every.single.night without fail, we put her on the toilet. She, not being of sound mind and screaming, would not want anything to do with it. She peed every time though and within a minute or two came back around and we were able to cuddle her and put her back to bed.

Obviously this may be a long shot but it worked with DD and later with younger DD when she was going through it.

Good luck. I know it can be scary and very trying. 3 hours is a long time, though. Maybe call the phone nurse at your ped's office just to ask about it.

This. ODD had night terrors for years. It was always one hour after she had gone to sleep. We figured out that she just had to pee. If we could catch her right as it started (like hear her rustling around) and put her right on the potty, she would pee and just go back to sleep. Also as a Pp mentioned, rousing them just before it usually happens can reset the sleep cycle and prevent it. DS has had a few but we are super diligent about putting him on the potty at the sametime time each night and either he has grown out of them or the potty trick works. Also if my kids are overtired they are much more likely to have one. Now that DD is almost 10 she doesn't have then but on occasion she will walk and talk in her sleep, it's pretty funny but I can see that a night terror is closely related to sleep walking.

I know they are super scary. DD used to scream for me and say "no no I don't want to." I was convinced there was something awful happening to her when I wasnt around. But it's just the night terror. It seems to me that they are genetic, I had them as a kid (I remember them) and all of my kids have had them. YDD is little but she's had a couple but she's not to the age that my others were when they had them a lot, so we shall see. When you know what to expect they aren't as scary.